International Relocations...

[EvieLee]

Thanks ladies, yes the intent thing has always been on my mind, but now I know for certain it is a large factor and most probably/definitely changes our Visa game plan. I will investigate further. He is currently in the US and I'm in Australia (4 months apart so far ) and he can't really come back here due to his schedule so marriage on US soil might be the best option...who knows. Agreed I need a good lawyer on my side. I will PM those who have used an attorney to get their recommendations.

Thank you also for the Match document I was unaware of this. I have forwarded it to him. He may already know about it, we don't get much time to communicate so things like this tend to go unsaid.

He will also be applying for 'backup' options too. Any suggestions for best 'back doors' that he could later get into NSG? He just loves surgery so I am guessing other surgery residencies.

You are all fabulous look forward to continually talking with you all about the journey and general life stuff

[Cinderella]

I didn't realize you were apart right now. Since he's MS3 if he plans to come back for a period of 6 months DCF may still be an option. I found on a couple immigration attorney websites that some embassies allow DCF still and Australia is one of them. The doing away with DCF happened in Sept 2011 but after that change went into effect Australia changed it back to allow DCF for petitioners that have been residents of the country for 6 months according to the immigration attorney website. However, when I searched it on VJ the members are telling the people that inquire about DCF in Australia that there is no more DCF there. So either the immigration attorney website isn't up to date or the members of VJ aren't up to date on the change in Australia. I looked on the US Embassy in Australia's website but didn't see DCF. Sometimes you have to go into the Embassy and talk directly with someone there to get the answers because with emailing them you'll get automated responses that don't always respond to the specific inquiry. I'd ask the immigration attorney to be sure since you're going to contact them anyways.

Otherwise, for the fiance visa you're going to file for the K1 (I-129F). Here are the visa guides to get started and inform yourself on your options: LINK

My husband also wanted to do surgery here as he's good with procedures. In his home country he's internal medicine and general surgery. His Step scores were competitive enough to apply for surgery but he's an older graduate, 5+ years at the time of the match, and many programs automatically filter you out and never lay eyes on your scores at that point, and they weren't super extra competitive either. That was a really tough match that year with record applicantions across the board. Plus he wasn't from a western affiliated medical school being from Egypt, but he did have US Citizenship.

So we were realistic about the match and went for Internal Medicine and Family Medicine as the back up. Even in his interviews he was told by some places that his scores were high for them and they asked him why he was choosing them and this specialty. We knew of a couple other guys from Egypt with the same or similar scores as him that were fresh graduates that got nearly twice as many interviews as him too. The funny thing is he matched and some of them didn't, but by the next year's match one of them matched at Cleveland Clinic. So we know his older graduate status filtered him out of places like Cleveland Clinic even though he had the competitive scores. I was bummed when I learned of an older IMG with lower scores than my husband who matched into GenSurg, because that meant he would have had a shot if he tried matching for his dream. IMGs match mainly into Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, OBGYN and Psychiatry.

With Internal Medicine he can sub-specialize into a whole category of fellowships that offer procedures such as Cardiology, GI, Transplant Nephrology, ect. At the start of second year of residency in our program we have to pick our sub-specialty for his career so he can start taking more rotations in it and get specific mentoring. We picked ours and know what we're going for and we're looking at another five years ahead of us for training. Provided he matches for fellowship he'll get to do his procedures eventually. So that could be an option for you guys as well.

I'll leave the back door to Neuro stuff open to the NSGs on here to answer as I'm not sure about that.

[rufflesanddots]

With Internal Medicine he can sub-specialize into a whole category of fellowships that offer procedures such as Cardiology, GI, Transplant Nephrology, ect. At the start of second year of residency in our program we have to pick our sub-specialty for his career so he can start taking more rotations in it and get specific mentoring. We picked ours and know what we're going for and we're looking at another five years ahead of us for training. Provided he matches for fellowship he'll get to do his procedures eventually. So that could be an option for you guys as well.
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This is our plan. DH is interested in surgery, but if he doesn't have the Step scores he'll go IM and then shoot for fellowship in a procedure-heavy sub-specialty.

[alotofyarn]

Here's some information on matches from prior classes: http://www.mededpath.org/residency_match.html

I don't want to be too harsh, but neurosurgery is going to be a really big stretch for him given his school (not only is it international, it's still new) and his Step 1. Ochsner does not have a neurosurgery residency, so I would have him try to connect with the LSU and Tulane programs. Even that's going to be a challenge though, because at least in some specialties, the local programs don't really like each other (like we had heard that if you applied to the LSU urology program or done an away with them, Tulane wouldn't interview you). Will he do away rotations in his 4th year? If so, those are going to be critical as well. He should try to talk to some of the graduates from previous years, especially those who were able to match into surgery, and get their advice as well.

[EvieLee]

Thank you all again.

Yes he is about to start his surgery rotation so will be using this time to further consider 'backups'. Either way he will be going into the match process with a back up as he is aware NSG is a BIG stretch. That being said I fully expect that he will exhaust every single possible avenue to try for a NSG match - still with a back up of course. He has been assisting the head of Tulane's residency program in multiple surgeries and has a specific meeting to discuss his chances coming up shortly. He is planning away rotations for every 'break' next year as well as preferencing for the NSG electives 3rd and 4th year break (here I was going to call it summer break but thats the wrong hemisphere ). And he has been talking with surgery residents as much as possible too. I have not heard any mention of LSU yet and I am not sure why this is the case, again there is only so much we can cover during long distance. I know he would be better off if he had not taken an IMG course, however then he wouldn't have met me so I am glad he did

Me I just want to see him happy, I don't mind what he tries to match into - but as tough as it currently is like I said I think he will exhaust his options for NSG otherwise he will probably always wonder.
[MENTION=1139]MrsC[/MENTION] thanks for your encouragement re: the challenges of an international relationship, certainly adds another level of challenge on top of being a medical spouse

I've been telling him how great this community is for me